Lod Airport massacre

The Lod Airport massacre occurred on 30 May 1972 when three members of the Japanese Red Army, guided by PFLP-EO, carried out a shooting spree at the Lod Airport (now Ben Gurion International Airport) in Tel Aviv, Israel, killing 26 people and injuring 79. The JRA guerrillas were trained in Baalbek, Lebanon by Wadie Haddad, and they were chosen for the attack due to their similar revolutionary communist views and due to the security forces' expectation that any attackers would be Palestinians, not Japanese. Funding for the attack was provided by the $5,000,000 ransom given to the hostages of the hijacked Lufthansa Flight 649. The attackers arrived on an Air France flight from Rome, Italy, each of them carrying slim violin cases. After entering the waiting area, they opened their violin cases and took out Vz. 58 assault rifles, firing indiscriminately at airport staff and visitors. They tossed grenades as they changed magazines, and attacker Yasuyuki Yasuda was accidentally killed by another attacker, while Tsuyoshi Okudaira was killed by one of his own grenades while attacking passengers disembarking from an El Al plane. Kozo Okamoto, the third attacker, was shot by security and captured, but he was released in 1985 after the hijacking of Japan Air Lines Flight 404.